Nordic activity suffers fall in 2007

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The value of both venture and buyout investments have fallen in 2007, compared with the year before. Venture investments in the region totalled EUR77m, down from EUR119m in 2006. Venture capitalists' tendency last year to do fewer, larger deals to minimise risk has created a funding gap between seed and expansion deals.

The same trend has been seen in buyout. Value of investments totalled EUR17bn, a massive drop from EUR27bn in 2006. This can be explained with the fall in activity due to the lack of financing post credit-crunch. There was a notable contraction in Q4 after the credit troubles started. March 2007 was the month where there was a surge in the value of Nordic deals, largely due to the EUR2.85bn tertiary buyout of Molnlycke Healthcare Group by Investor AB and Morgan Stanley Principal Investments from Apax, the largest deal in 2007. The EUR10bn drop from 2006 was also due to the TDC jumbo deal in February that year which skewed figures.

GP confidence remains optimistic, both among buyout firms and venture firms, for the coming year, despite the back drop of the world economy. Read more in this months' exit feature.